Page 56 of The Fate Factor

I blink up to his face, suddenly freezing and way too aware of the dark. “No. Wait,” I say. “I want to go back.”

I rush back to shore, gathering my discarded clothing as I go. I don’t understand what this means. I saw the future. How could I get this wrong?

Or maybe I didn’t get it wrong. Maybe it changed. And if this can change, what about the rest of it?

The old me who spent two years debunking this entire thing finally found her first hole in all of this. But themeright now, the one who dashed into the ocean at night with a gorgeous man, who was starting to believe in magic and that maybe it was somehow on her side? That me’s heart has slid out of her chest and pooled at her feet on this cold sand.

I feel like a tiny toy, batted around by some unknown force for entertainment. Shouldn’t you have to agree to these kinds of cosmic interventions? Sign a waiver maybe? At least a mental health screening. God, what if this whole thing is really a mental breakdown after all?

Suddenly I see this entire scene from somewhere outside my body. A dark beach, a man I barely know. My eyes turned to stars.

Fate,a voice whispers. Then another,Fool.

Jamie’s behind me in an instant. “Noe,” he says, shortening my name in a way that feels too intimate now. “What’s wrong? What happened?” He pulls me against his bare chest and rubs his hands over the goosebumps on my arms, giving me his warmth. God, he’s not even shivering. He’s acclimated to this wildness. I never belonged in it.

My teeth knock together violently. The water’s too cold. It’s too dark. We’re not even supposed to be down here.

“I messed it up. That has to be it. Can that be it?”

“What could you have possibly messed up?”

I groan and step out of his grip. “I need to go home.”

“What? Now?”

“Sorry, yeah. I’m just suddenly really tired.”

Disappointment flashes over his face. “Well, can I see you tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. I should probably focus on figuring out my—” I wave a hand near my head. “Mental block or whatever. That’s why I’m here, right?”

Jamie watches me for a long moment, eyes bouncing around my face. It’s cruel, this flimsy explanation I’ve given him. But it’s hitting me like a punch to the face, how flimsy this was from the start.Let’s be friends and see what happens.

I reach down to hold my sneaker still, balancing on one foot while I stuff the other inside, sand and all.

“Noel, if I did something…”

“You didn’t.” My ankle wobbles, and Jamie catches my arm, steadying me. I open my mouth to tell him some version of it’s not him, it’s me, but the words don’t come because I’m distracted by light behind my eyelids.

Then a picture.

It was just a flash this time, not enough to tell what I was looking at, but enough to make my legs feel weak beneath me. “Shoot.”

“What’s wrong?” Jamie adjusts his grip, holding more of my weight.

“Nothing, I—” My brain starts to swim again. My God, I was practically feeling him up a few minutes ago, and nothing. Now this?

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that fighting it makes it worse. The vision filters in, Jamie and me on a cobblestone street, people mulling around and bass coming from somewhere in the distance. He’s wearing a beanie instead of the ball cap, long sleeves that hide his tattoos. It’s a side street lit with lamp light,and it shines on his cheeks, red from the cold and under far more scruff than he has now.

He steps closer, pressing me against the wall of a building, an arm propped above my head. Then he leans in. People turn and smirk at the PDA. But I don’t care, because the kiss that follows, it’s not the kind of kiss that was about to happen back there. That kiss would have had lust behind it if our teasing words and the rough squeeze of his fingers was any indication.

This kiss I’m seeing now, it’s tender. Intimate. It’s the kind of kiss that feels like a confession.

With the slow contraction of darkness, it’s over.

“Noel?” Jamie’s voice sounds like it’s underwater.

When I open my eyes, I’m leaning into his chest, my chin tipped to him the way it was in the vision, but my lower lip trembles.

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